


Into Strange Vagaries Fell

by MysteryMuse



Series: Paradise Lost [4]
Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X
Genre: Innocence, Lies, Lumine Has No Shame, M/M, Maverick on Hunter, Memory Alteration, Mind Control, Mind Games, Mindwiping, Minor Original Character(s), OT3, OT4, OTP Feels, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Paradise Lost, Rare Pairings, Reploid "pregnancy", Reploid Politics, Suicide Attempt, backgrounded OT3, divine retribution, may be triggery to some
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-05 04:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1805146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysteryMuse/pseuds/MysteryMuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zero and Axl are born again in Lumine's new world, even though they tried with all their power not to be. Now it's up to X to decide if any of them should stay, but he's under Lumine's spell, and things just aren't that black and white...  AU, continues from the events of Starve without Your Skeleton Key.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Received the Immaculate Fix

Axl and Zero went along like nothing was wrong. Zero wouldn't even talk about it - about X's death. Whenever he was pressed, which was often in the first two weeks after the confirmation, he shrugged, his eyes shuttered and lightless, and replied: "Shit happens."  
  
And then he disappeared for hours at a time when he wasn't required to be present for meetings, in standby mode for combat, or actually on the field in battle. The command staff couldn't do anything to stop him. He was Zero, and Zero was a legend, and he still fought with the raw savagery of a feral animal - even more so, now. He no longer smiled. He no longer made little gallows-humor jokes. He ignored every attempt at counseling, waved away offers of paid downtime, brushed off pleas for psychological checkups, and rebuffed all offers of sympathy. He didn't even speak in battle except to give the most clipped and precise orders. He started to go to the red line between recharges, working himself until his body froze in place from power drain.  
  
Axl was almost as bad. He too, had lost something; when X was pronounced lost, when Zero went dark, Axl turned grim as death.  
  
It was obvious that they were bleeding to death inside, but too proud and too angry to admit it. They were, the other Hunters murmured in secret, just this side of Maverick now, and totally beyond anyone's help. Such a pity. Such a shame.  
  
The other Hunters started to steer wide of them. Axl and Zero retreated further and further into shadow.

* * *

  
Axl and Zero nearly killed each other twice. They never fought each other - there was no fate between them like there had once supposedly been between Zero and X - no great prophecy of destruction hung over their heads, and they didn't hate each other. They'd actually only grown closer and closer in their grief. But there had been one day... A look, a flashed exchange of understanding, pain leaking out through the rusted nails and duct tape holding their souls together, and Zero had drawn the Saber and Axl had gotten the Bullets out and then they rushed each other, slammed together, teeth bared, pistol to head and sword to throat, breathing hard and hurt with their foreheads rubbing while the ozone ran off their bodies in waves.  
  
And something in them, something itching down deep inside their minds stopped them, wouldn't let them actually take the leap. Axl's finger wouldn't bend. Zero couldn't move his wrist. Zero made a loud, bitter noise from his throat, an inhuman machine sob like he'd swallowed a razor blade. He jumped back, face red and blotched with sorrow. Axl stared at his back and mentally targetted the spots that he would hit for a clean, instant kill, but his pistols melted out of his grasp.    
  
"Coward," Zero rasped, and Axl didn't take it personally, because he knew Zero wasn't talking to him.  
  
They tried again the following week. Zero got as far as nicking Axl's throat, drawing a thin line of dark black fluid from a jugular, but his arms reversed of their own accord, and pulled the blade away. Axl found his hand jerking sharply to one side, the shot meant to shatter Zero's skull going wide into the wall.  
  
The second time, the weight in their minds intensified to an unbearable pressure, a squeezing, crushing fist pushing away the light, and before they blacked out they heard a familiar voice whispering, so soft, so coy, so tender.  
  
 _"I won't let you go."_

* * *

  
There was no way to escape. They knew exactly what was happening to them, but had no power to stop it. The enemy was deep in their minds, with roots spread into every limb and wrapped around every wire, and their throats were clogged from within with purple wax, so they couldn't scream for help.  
  
They squirmed within the cages of their bodies as they were moved like marionettes. They wondered why he was dragging it out. All they could do was wait for judgement and hope for a moment, just a moment, when the inner eyes blinked closed.

As a punishment for their thoughts, they were stricken blind.

* * *

All that had ever been was darkness.  
  
When the light returned, it drowned them.

* * *

A Reploid sat up slowly on the table and took in his surroundings. He looked around, curious because his surroundings were unfamiliar. He was in a lab, clean, pleasantly cool, and white. Machines and monitors beeped quietly about him. A series of pale green holograms encircled the table; diagnostics, schematics, status indicators. He glanced down the length of his arm and found his hand, found a series of cables snaking into sockets in his right arm, which had a few panels removed. They vibrated, and made the metal structure of his forearm rumble, but the sensation wasn't painful, so he ignored it and continued to examine himself. He was sleek, lean and well-built, with bright red armor and, for some reason, a long flow of gleaming gold hair curled around his shoulders and back that felt exquisitely soft to the touch. He toyed with it a little, marvelling at the feel of the strands between his fingers, then let it go and looked to the side.  
  
There was another table, and another Reploid lying there, breathing level, eyes closed and face smooth and calm. He looked different - dark blue armor with red streaks and grey undercarriage.  
  
Hearing footsteps, the blond Reploid turned his head and saw a figure approaching - another Reploid, robed in white, with purple and green hexagonal accents and a large hexagonal jewel, deep blue, set in the center of his chest. His head was crowned with a strange configuration of rotating light that changed colors, flowing and fluxing, shifting between eight different primary shades, and he wore a white cloak. When he spotted the awakened Reploid on the table, he smiled warmly. "Hello, Zero."  
  
The red Reploid cocked his head and then smiled back, lazy and mellow. "Hi. If I'm Zero, who are you? And who's that?" Gesturing at the navy blue Reploid and then back to himself. "I don't seem to have any data at all. I can tell I'm strong, but that's about it."  
  
Lumine smiled again, tipping his head back, just slightly. "My name is Lumine. The Reploid beside you is named Axl. You currently lack data because this is the first time you've been activated." He moved away from the console, and laid hands on Zero's shoulders, pressing him gently back down into the table. "Don't concern yourself with that right now. You'll be trained in your proper function as soon as I am sure you operate at full capacity."  
  
Zero gazed up into Lumine's visible gold eye, wondering. "Just so I know, what exactly is my proper function?"  
  
Lumine's smile sharpened, and his fingers moved over the repainted mark on Zero's left shoulder guard- a lightning bolt L where the Z had previously been. "To serve and protect me, of course."


	2. Nest of Salt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> X "recovers" in the New World, with "help" from Lumine. But things almost immediately become much more complex when Lumine and X bond over the creation of a new form of life within X's body...

In the secure chambers at the lotus-center of the New World, X slept on white silk, armorless, his body bathed in blue shadows and reflections of Lumine’s subtle and everpresent radiance. For the first few days he only slept, slept as if he were dead, a sleep that Lumine encouraged, because it was obvious that X needed it. X’s exhaustion was soul-deep; a few hours of recharge at a time had never been enough to wash away the weariness of a hundred years of war. X woke only long enough to drink the necessary amount of fuel, fed to him in a silver cup, with Lumine’s hand under his neck, and then went back down, half asleep again before his head settled back against the pillows. No signals reached him; the rooms were sealed against all external intrusions. No sounds disturbed him; the Moon had no air through which sound waves could project. No dreams distressed him; X's inner world was silent. No one except Lumine, in all the world, even knew that X was still alive. They thought he was dead. In a certain way of thinking, he was; he had died in the Mare Serenitatus.  
  
Lumine sat next to him from time to time, when the business of reorganizing the world allowed, brushing his fingertips through X’s hair as he slept.

Lumine gently wove one layer of code-spell after another into the former Hunter’s neural pathways while he let out slow and rhythmic pulses. His fingers moved easily along the hidden nodes in X’s scalp, letting data move directly between their skins through a thousand miniscule lines. He scanned and copied and tweaked. The most important things he left alone. A handful of almost insubstantial corrections, here and there. Just to take the edge off. The deletion of one or two seconds that represented a realization, a fear, a concern, a doubt.

Just a few.  
  
When X finally came back online, when his eyes flashed back from hazy green static into sharp, holographic focus, Lumine was the first thing he saw. The Maverick sat X up, wrapped him in more soft silk and placed a diadem of light on his brow. Smiling.  
  
"Now you can be at peace, as you wished," Lumine said. "Now you can become something different."  
  
X reached up and tugged Lumine against him, awash in gratitude and starlight.

* * *

X was dozing indulgently - not quite asleep, but not entirely awake either - gazing through at the stars visible through the pillars of the master bedroom and letting his mind wander in no particular direction. He knew he was being indulgent, and it felt very strange to be doing nothing for hours and hours on end. Lumine hadn’t asked him to do anything more complicated than occasionally carrying on a conversation. It was shocking to him to see how trained he had let himelf become: constantly moving, doing, fighting, working - and never stopping to breathe or think. Or simply exist for a day. He had no idea how to be something other than a combat drone any more.  
  
So X let himself lounge, cocooned in warm silk and rebellious, wilfull indolence, when he felt a light weight settling into the bed behind him. A low sigh of breath tickled the back of his neck, arms snaking under him and around him to circle lightly. X stirred, turning his head to peek over his shoulder, seeing a bit of Lumine’s lavender fringe. “Mm. Lumine?” X slid his hand over Lumine’s.  
  
The newgen murmured against X’s shoulder, lips on his inner casing, something vague that X couldn’t quite follow because Lumine wasn’t transmitting, only moving his mouth. The newgen tugged X closer into him, then finally said, over radio, “Don’t be concerned. I’m just unsettled by something I learned today, and somewhat tired.”  
  
X ran his thumb over the back of Lumine’s hand. “I did offer to help with something. I’m just lying here sleeping all the time, and I feel like some kind of awful moocher.”  
  
The newgen lifted his head, gold eyes darkened almost to brown. “No, I don’t think of you that way, and I don’t want you to define yourself by tasks and missions here. I won’t risk your recovery on things that I can easily handle without you. When the time comes, I have a number of things we can work on together, but that is at least another week away.”  
  
X fidgeted. “Another week? It’s just… it feels really strange to have nothing to do for this long. It’s nice, but it’s … worthless? Even though I still feel like I can barely move, honestly.”  
  
Lumine made a small, scoffing noise - not at X, but at X’s thoughts. “Of course. Your body is still healing and was severely damaged from that worthless armor I found you wearing. I understand why you’re exhausted - that armor was completely wrong for you. It seems the Federation ignored Light’s specific warnings and built it with extra processors to overclock your systems. It had other damaging effects, too. I found a layer of code in it designed to run through the armor processor that you couldn’t manage, one that effectively worked to rescript your personality. That armor was a drug, poisoning you every moment you wore it. It was designed to make you more aggressive and dominate your will. I don’t know what they intended to have you do with such a monstrous setup, apart from kill without hesitation and do it without thinking.”  
  
Lumine moved, and pulled on X’s shoulder, getting X to lay on his back, so he could look X in the face. X was a little paler from the explanation, and Lumine saw a faint hint of outrage that X was trying to smother. “You must allow yourself time to heal and learn how to live in your body without augmentation. To learn and relearn what your normal, natural state feels like to you. I’m not sure you ever have; even your original body was quickly modified into a weapon after Sigma rebelled. As I said before, we may be Reploids, but we’re not just machines. I want you to rest. Must I make that a command instead of an offer?”  
  
X shook his head, then slid his arm down Lumine’s back, tracing the ridges of Lumine’s plating below his shoulderblades. “No, you don’t have to go that far.”  
  
The newgen rested his head on X’s chest, drawing little shapeless symbols on x’s inner casing with his fingertip. “Anyway, there’s nothing more that I need help with tonight that you could do for me. Everything is progressing as it should, it just becomes frustrating to have to wait it through the process, sometimes. Let’s just be like this for a while.”  
  
"When are you going to really let me in, Lumine?" X murmured, after a few minutes of warm silence passed, and after he detected Lumine’s core rhythm slowing.  
  
Lumine’s eyes were closed; he hummed gently against X’s breastplate, his radiation faintly amused. “The human phrase ‘barefoot and pregnant’ is coming to your mind, isn’t it? Don’t worry about that. I want you at my side, but everything in its own time. Though,” Lumine looked up, eyes bright gold again, “there is something to the idea.”  
  
X staggered over the thought as he caught the trailing edge of it blossoming in Lumine’s mind and aura; it was completely obvious, but unthinkable at the same time. He opened his mouth to say something, but fell into Lumine’s gaze and snagged on the newgen’s gleaming eyes. His logic completely scattered from him at the sudden intensity Lumine was throwing out. “We can’t,” he started to say, but trailed off as Lumine rallied and moved himself to throw his weight over X, climbing him, so that their faces were level.  
  
"Of course we can," Lumine said, thoughtful and even more amused. "Not like humans do, nothing organic, but there is something possible… an energy made from the two of us, something yours and mine, our combined DNA… a new data-being that could learn and grow…that is something we could achieve very easily here." Lumine was caught in his vision, and he stroked his fingers down X’s abdomen, tenderly, seeing X’s body in a new light, scanning through the blueprints. "You have the capacity to carry data within you, and of course to carry DNA data as well. You can also make new patterns from that data you receive and adapt it to suit yourself…"  
  
X shifted, teetering between terror and strange fascination at the idea. It had honestly never occured to him to try something that outlandish, not even in the depths of all that he’d explored of himself with Zero. He pushed his head back against the pillows, gasping, struggling to think as Lumine sank deeper into the vision and dragged him along. And Lumine had started toying with the lines of his hips. “Wait, wait, Lumine, mutation, viruses, recombinant Reploid DNA never stays intact,” X gasped, as his face started to heat.  
  
The newgen giggled softly, “Our DNA is fully compatible, and your body is the ideal flask to synthesize it.” Lumine nudged his foot against X’s ankle. “My data contains all the relevant and useful material from all the models of the old world. Also, your data is pure, the base data for all our kind. Light stated that he gave you the capacity to facilitate the creation of new life for robots. Would you rather your legacy be one of death or one of creation?” The Maverick’s eyes were gleaming, and he captured X’s mouth with a hot, eager kiss. X inevitably yielded, by degrees. He couldn’t resist Lumine’s vision. “I know you can see this, X.”  
  
The worst part was that X absolutely could.  
  
X canted his hips into Lumine’s hands, and lowered his firewalls. It was weightless and effortless, just an instant; X felt vaguely disappointed. The last possible barrier between Mavericks and Hunters had just collapsed, as momentous an occasion as anything in human history, and it was so quick, so light; there should have been thunder, or a storm, or an explosion, X thought vaguely, tipping his head back as Lumine grasped his hips and slid through him silky-smooth. Something to mark the moment. They were destroying history; everything would be measured before and after.  
  
Data flooded into him, through Lumine’s guiding force, thick and strong strands of pure life, radiant, something X could sense but not fully manipulate. X sobbed out, because he was being taken somewhere, pinned to a crystal white and perfect lattice that he could never have reached on his own. Lumine helped him, moved his thoughts into a shape around the data, allowing him to see it more clearly. The strands came together, started to weave, built into something tiny and yet infinite; an invisible dot of alien light knotting together in the heat of X’s core. It wasn’t a virus, wasn’t exploitable data, wasn’t organic; was something wholly new, a new form of life, but X almost instantly felt himself flaring with possessiveness, bonding to it, recognizing it as a part of his body, a fulfilling purpose. It existed, a thing beyond either of them. It was alive. It was so fragile. He would absolutely protect it, always.  
  
X moaned, wet and gleaming, to feel the tiny weight of the tiny dot so heavily and so delicately.  

Lumine bit his lip, and kissed X again, much more gently. Whispering, as his lavender hair brushed X’s cheek. Continuing to pulse and to feed and knit, with X’s body providing a ribbon of constant power. “You are a miracle, X,” the Maverick breathed to X, lost in creation, “A holy miracle. I can never let you go back to the old world now.”  
  
X chuckled, a little dizzy. “Did you ever mean to?”  
   
"No," Lumine answered, honestly, and his eyes glowed brilliant red. "You may need to prepare yourself for this to happen again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At NO POINT should Lumine and X's relationship ever be considered healthy. Lumine is shamelessly manipulating X under the 'peace through tyranny' concept. And X is fascinated by Lumine, almost uncontrollably so, but Lumine is not playing fair with him, so the whole thing is deeply out of whack, power-wise. They act like equals, but they aren't. At the same time, this kind of luxurious, peaceful life is so alien to X that it holds great appeal - he kind of wants to be taken care of for a while - and Lumine has some genuine feelings for X as well, as a thing that he wants very much in many ways. 
> 
> This chapter was written AFTER the old chapter three, as a response to some anon Tumblr asks, but writing it fundamentally changed the plan of the story in my mind, so it required yanking the existing material and substituting this in its place. Sorry if this is confusing, but now the story's timeline should make a lot more sense. We're still in the 2 month period BEFORE X becomes aware of Axl and Zero's altered presence in the New World, and now he has more children to deal with. ;D


End file.
